Sometimes it’s patience that makes perfect. Such is the case for metalcore group Heartist, which has seemingly burst onto the scene out of thin air with its debut EP, Nothing You Didn’t Deserve, on rock and metal staple Roadrunner Records.

Since its release in August, the quintet has embarked on numerous tours and heads out in March with Enter Shikari for a month-long jaunt that stops at Chain Reaction in Anaheim March 20-21.

I caught up with vocalist Bryce Beckley, guitarist Tim Koch, drummer Matt Marquez and bassist Evan Ranallo (guitarist Jonathan Gaytan couldn’t make the interview) at Koch’s parents’ house in Garden Grove as they prepared to hit the road once again. We snuggled into a front room and sat on couches covered with a floral print while surrounded by country-themed knickknacks. Nothing is more metal than floral print.

Koch started the band in 2011 with Marquez, who at the time was on tour with Grammy-nominated metal act Norma Jean. The duo found Beckley through MySpace, and after a couple of pleas Beckley persuaded Ranallo, his GameStop co-worker, to join the band as well. They’d all done their time in various other groups – played, promoted, social-networked and eventually burned out. With Heartist, a moniker that comes from smooshing heart and artist together, they wanted to approach things differently.

“Instead of just rushing out there and playing all of these shows, we wanted to make sure we had the right members and the right songs,” Beckley says.

“When we recorded the album we wrote it in Tim’s bedroom and the vocal closet was his actual closet. We spent over a year in that room writing and eating as much Taco Bell as possible. If it weren’t for Taco Bell and the beefy crunch burritos, all of this would never have happened. While we were doing it, too ,we’d joke like, ‘Man, if we got signed before we even played a show, it would be hilarious.’”

After struggling through so many short-lived prior endeavors, Koch says they took time to craft each track, hoping to bring some emotions back to more harder, screaming music.

“There were a lot of bands in the area doing heavy music but they really weren’t putting their hearts into it or getting the point across with the songs,” he notes.

“We wanted to put as much as we could into each song whether it was anger, sadness or happiness, we wanted each track to bring that out. I think a key thing for us, too, was that we didn’t just finish a song and go, ‘Oh let’s put it out quick.’ We sat on these songs for over a year because we knew we had to get it right.”

When the tracks were complete the band began sending out demos to local venues and labels to land gigs and introduce themselves to the world after nearly 18 months holed up in a bedroom. One of those discs landed in the hands of Roadrunner A&R representative Andy Serrao and the group was asked to showcase at Chain Reaction on Jan. 21 of last year. It was the band’s first-ever live performance and with various A&R reps and agents in the audience, there was a lot to be nervous about.

“I guess we did OK,” Beckley says. “After that we talked to Roadrunner and we ended up flying out to New York and they bought us food. They wined and dined us and we signed with them.”

Partnering with that particular label – home to artists such as Dream Theater, Korn, Rush, Slipknot, Stone Sour and the odd band out, Orange County indie-rock act Young the Giant – was a dream come true for Heartist.

“I think their roster is amazing and they have a lot of bands that I grew up listening to,” Koch says. “It’s cool to be mixed in with a lot of the people who inspired us to make music. I wouldn’t be playing the style of guitar that I’m playing if I didn’t listen to Trivium all through high school.”

“Roadrunner also reminds people that this kind of music is still alive,” Marquez adds. “It’s not a failing genre or a fad that’s going to just go away, and on this label we have a chance to show people that that isn’t the case at all.”

To further promote itself, Heartist has practically lived in its white van for the past several months, coming up with unique ways to make the journey from city to city more entertaining by creating specific soundtracks to whatever scenario they encounter on the road. Ranallo, who admitted to having more than 200 gigabytes of Disney music and 100 gigabytes of soundtrack scores stored on his iPod, is in charge of making the treks adventurous.

“We were driving down a dusty dirt road and I put on the music to Silent Hill,” he says. “It was the middle of the night and it was terrifying.”

“A few days earlier we had been driving through these lush hills and we had on the music from The Hobbit,” Beckley continues. “The Silent Hill music really made that trip freaky because it was so foggy and there were deer everywhere and they wanted to die. They were darting at the van and some were already dead on the side of the road and we got a little bit of blood on our trailer.

“We showed up to our next show and people were like ‘Is that blood?’ and we said, ‘Yeah, so?’”

Heartist, along with Enter Shikari, Architects and Crossfaith, play March 20-21 at Chain Reaction in Anaheim, 1652 W. Lincoln Ave. Tickets: $13-$15.

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